911 Arm Save
Location: Redlands, California Date: October 24, 1989 Story In spring 1989, fifteen-year-old Shelly Eaton moved into her grandparents' house in Redlands, California because she and her mother, Laurie, were not getting along. Pauline and Albert Amaboli had given her a room of her own. "Shelly and I have always been very close. She's a good girl. But, she and her mother have not been getting along. And we all just felt that she'd be better living with me for a while," Pauline remembers. Six months later, on the afternoon of October 24, Pauline and Albert were watching television while Shelly was in her room standing on a stool trying to hang a poster on the wall. She suddenly lost her balance and fell into the window cutting both her arms badly. At 5:17pm, dispatcher Debbie Winland took Pauline's 911 call. "She was bleeding to death. The right arm was cut to the bone and it was cut so severely," said Pauline. From the nearest fire station Rick Linsky and his partner responded. "She kept telling my husband, 'Oh, Grandpa I'm going to die,'" said Pauline. The next door neighbors came over and tried to help but the blood was gushing out too much. Debbie gave Pauline, who was hysterical, direct instructions and they laid Shelly on the floor. "She looked extremely pale. There was a lot of bleeding and a lot of blood," said Rick. Because of the tremendous blood loss, Shelly was deterring rapidly. Without enough fluids, she would go into shock and die. At Loma Linda, the nearest trauma center, nurse Patrice Fordis was warned to prepare for Shelly's arrival. Dr. Ed Hackie was called in to take care of her. Laurie, her husband, Bill, and son, Todd, rushed to the hospital as soon as they heard what had happened. "We arrived the same time the ambulance did. When they took her out of the ambulance she was just covered in blood from head to toe. I looked at her and she recognized me right away. She said, 'Mom, my arms hurt so bad. They hurt so bad.' This is your worst nightmare come true. Your worst nightmare. I was just so afraid that she may not survive," said Laurie. Her family watched in shock while they took her into the trauma room and did not know what to expect. Dr. Hackie and the trauma team realized from the paramedics information that Shelly lost about a quarter two-third of her blood volume and felt that she needed to have surgery as soon as possible. Vascular specialist Dr. Lewis Snip was called in and worked on the blood vessels in her left arm while vascular surgeon Robert Brownly worked on her right one. "She had multiple injuries. What we had to do was take a vein from her leg," said Dr. Brownly. As soon as they replaced the circulation, orthopedic surgeon Robert Unsell was brought in to try to restore the use of her arms. "The anestheslologist told me that he'd never seen somebody who had lost that much blood would still be alive," said Dr. Unsell. He first concentrated on Shelly's right arm which had been nearly cut in half. "She had cut two out of the three major nerves that go to her arm and this is probably the hardest part of the surgery. Sort of like if you have a big cable like a telephone line you can't just glue it back together," said Dr. Unsell. Using advanced techniques of micro surgery, the 15 hour operation was completed. When Shelly woke up in the Intensive Care Unit she did not realize where she was and when she looked up all she could see was six bags of blood going into her feet and IVs going into her neck while she thought to herself, "Oh my gosh! What's happened to me?" Within three weeks, Shelly's left arm was almost normal. Doctors expected she would eventually gain 90 percent mobilities in her right. Until then she's forced to be left handed. "I can do everything with my left hand practically except for the right which I'm still working on," said Shelly. Since being released from the hospital, Shelly has moved back in with her family. "I'm glad that she's back because we are real close. I didn't really like it when she was gone," said Todd. "This has changed all our lives. Shelly and I had argued about boundaries and curfews but now that this is has changed there's nothing that we can't work out or deal with or anything else that comes along that we couldn't handle together," said Laurie. "People think they’re lucky to win the lottery. I'm lucky to have my life," said Shelly. Category:1989 Category:California Category:Glass Category:Bleeding